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a healthy church...transformingLIFE |
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'Breakfast is ready'The Bishop's Easter message - 2008 |
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An invitation given on a beautiful beach. The guests? Fisherman returning to shore. The host? Well, here we have a problem. You see, we saw him killed; dead and buried. Yet, in truth, we recognise him, and he has breakfast waiting for us. And a beach barbeque, at that! Not bad after a hard night's work. But, is it really him? Yes! Somehow he has returned from the dead. Stories, real live stories, yes even real live stories about death, are stranger than fiction. Our mate doing the beach barbeque has come back from the dead. During his life he said that he would die and return to life. But, hey, who believed him? Well, none of us did. Actually, nobody believed it before he died. But now we believe it's true because it's him. We saw him. Ate his barbeque breakfast. He does a good barbeque. We believe. He has returned from the dead just as he said he would. We believe he died and rose again. He had this big hairy audacious goal (leadership literature puts it like that). He said he died to restore our relationship with God, to show that death was not the end and that whoever believes in him has eternal life with God. Would I have believed him before breakfast on the beach? Well, I didn't. Do I believe him at breakfast on the beach? Yes, I do. Listener, do you believe him? I believe Jesus did die and did come back from the dead. Jesus invites us to follow him, to form relationship with him that we might delight in our relationship with God, know that death is a door and that in following him we might become like him. This is life giving. 'Breakfast is ready.' P.S. See, The Gospel according to John 21:12,13
Bishop John Harrower |
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